Book Review: The Dream Keeper’s Daughter by Emily Colin

“I never wanted one human being to matter to me so much that if I lost them, I’d lose myselftoo.”

What a lovely story this was – full of love and magic and sacrifice and, above all, the delight and devastation of chance… Isabel is a charming protagonist, and she is surrounded on all sides by a diverse group of supporting characters who lend depth and warmth to her story. That story did not proceed as I thought it would based on the book’s description, but for once that was a surprisingly good thing – there is a twist that is not even alluded to there, and it becomes the basis for the majority of the story. I liked that; it was a pleasant surprise and happened to bring in an element that I love reading about.

There were a few points where I felt like the story floundered a bit. Finn (Isabel’s daughter) is a delight, but we don’t get nearly enough of her. Her role in the story is HUGE, but her character is not fleshed out as much as that role would suggest (or, to my mind, as much as it required). The end got surprisingly TV-MA – it wasn’t necessarily inappropriate, but it felt a bit gratuitous and very unexpected, given the tone and tenor of the previous majority of the book (and the guarded and emotionally withdrawn nature of the characters to that point). I appreciate that this may have been the point, but it still felt rather surprisingly graphic. And finally, the actual ending was a little open-ended. That may have been intentional – this is, after all, the era of the sequel. Still, the reader is left with a pretty wide-open set of possibilities, particularly for Finn and Max. I might have liked to see a little more about where their relationship was going…

All in all though, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and I would definitely look for the author again. I must admit though, I still don’t understand the title – there are two daughters in this one, Isabel and Finn, and I suppose it could refer to either (or both), but the “dream keeper” portion has me at a bit of a loss… There are poignant and prescient dreams throughout the story (suggesting that the eponymous keeper would be Isabel/daughter would be Finn), but the “keeper” concept isn’t really a big part of that. Not for anything, but usually it’s easier to figure out the basis for the title. It doesn’t detract at all to not know, but it is a mystery to me nevertheless…

My review copy was provided by the publisher through NetGalley.